Changes include street level restaurants and retail, new film center, and expansion of Juilliard and Alice Tully Hall. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts sought approval for the large-scale redesign by New York firms Diller Scofidio+Renfro and Fox and Fowle Architects of its West 65th Street frontage, requiring an amendment to the zoning text and map and acquisition of an easement over City property.
Under the plan, Lincoln Center’s three parking and loading entrances and … <Read More>
Opponents filed claim 31 months too late. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which leases the land in Central Park from Parks under an 1871 directive of the state legislature, proposed to renovate the museum in 2000 and presented a detailed plan to Parks and Landmarks. The plan called for a new loading dock, the addition of public cafeterias and new auditoriums. Parks Commissioner Henry Stern signed off on the plan in December 2002, noting that … <Read More>
Court declares art organization, not building owner, owns artwork on exterior wall of SoHo historic district building. In September 2004, Judge Deborah A. Batts allowed the Board of Managers of Soho International Arts Condominium to proceed with its Fifth Amendment takings claim against the City, pending an inquiry as to who owned the well-known minimalist sculpture by artist Forrest Myers that had been attached to 599 Broadway since 1973. (See CityLand’s past coverage here.)… <Read More>
Controversial luxury condos to proceed adjacent to new Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal. In 2002, 160 Imlay Street LLC applied to BSA for a use variance to allow the conversion of a vacant six-story industrial building and the addition of three stories for a proposed luxury condominium building in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. The proposed site, a 61,546-square-foot, manufacturing- zoned lot located at 160 Imlay Street, is adjacent to the new Brooklyn Cruise Ship … <Read More>
Home designated cultural landmark, but community demands full historic district. On May 17, 2005, Landmarks held a public hearing and immediately voted to designate the neo-tudor style, single-family home at 115-24 Grosvenor Road in Kew Gardens as a cultural landmark since it was the home, from 1952 until his death in 1971, of Dr. Ralph Bunche. Dr. Bunche was appointed to the committee that oversaw the partition of Israel following the United Nations’ formation and, … <Read More>
Lapidus-designed hotel at Lexington and East 51st designated. Following the no-vote on the Crawford Clothes building at 36 East 14th Street, Landmarks voted to designate the Morris Lapidus designed Summit Hotel at 569 Lexington Avenue at East 51st Street, currently operated as the Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel. Lapidus’ original design included dark green tile and turquoise brick, a dramatic Scurved slab facade, a distinctive oval-lettered blade sign and aluminum globe-shaped light fixtures lining the East 51st … <Read More>